89 Seconds to Midnight: Eating Spiders in Your Sleep

Look, I don’t like being what others call me: a pessimistic doomsayer. You think I wanted to be like this?

Well, I didn’t, and I hate it.

But this is a big deal, and I’m telling you now, do not take it lightly.

Except, some of you may find belief in flying saucers and aliens easier to manage than the calamitous situation we are all looking at. And hey, I get it. We’re in deep doo doo here, and none of us is going to face that without anxiety and fear. But be careful. Some diversions just aren’t healthy. I should know.

In coping with CPTSD, I have often taken on self-destructive activities, and I’m blessed to have survived some of them. But what I’m seeing isn’t exactly diversions except for movies and the gaming world. Lies flood the Internet, and, having fallen for my share, I am telling you that there’s danger out there. Enough of them catch on, and the next thing you know, you’ll believe anything.

People believe that you eat spiders every night in your sleep.

What baloney, and even the slightest bit of research will illustrate that you’re far more likely to be struck by lightning than to ever, in your entire life, swallow a spider in your sleep. Spiders don’t like us. They want nothing to do with us. Even bites are rare, meaning that usually you need to stick a hand or foot into a space where one is chilling out. It’s true that shoes left overnight on the floor can seem like a haven to a spider, but if it makes you feel better, hang them up, laces across a hanger, or pour a bunch of foot powder inside. Heck, I’d worry more about scorpions.

However, if we ground ourselves with reality, if we just read or listen to reliable sources, they tell a story of something we all should be worried about.

The Trump administration has already, in record time, made enemies of almost every country in the entire world. This does not include Russia, which will wring everything it can get out of Trump, then turn into a rabid enemy. He does not believe that. He believes lots of things that, frankly, have already killed people, and will kill many more.

His gold dome defense is essentially slag; useless and not even nice to look at. Experts have easily torn it apart as being inadequate and an invitation to other countries to make the slightest of adjustments to defeat it.

I personally don’t know if Donald Trump wanted to destroy the United States, but he has managed it in short order. Everything is corrupt. Idiots are being put in key positions, leaving us open to the domestic terrorism of ICE, illegal imprisonment and worse, and he exalts in his power to see lives end.

He is guilty of serious human rights violations, and nobody in our government utters a word of protest.

He takes things verbatim out of Hitler’s playbook.

Meanwhile, what of the countries he’s strong-armed, pissed off, or harmed economically?

China had, because of tariffs, embarked on a trade embargo, with empty cargo vessels being sent.

Who really suffered?

The people of the United States. And Trump knew that would happen.

If the Doomsday Clock has moved even one second closer to midnight, it is significant. That’s because the board takes into account breakdowns of political talks, the state of world economy and its projected path, climate change (global warming), and who is in power, and with that, any social upheaval.

Indeed, planet earth has never hosted a scene like this. All of history, even in the most horrible of times, has nothing that compares to this.

And it’s just getting started.

Any one person can make a difference.

Heroes are not born, not trained, not distinguishable from anyone else. You can’t point at someone and say, “Hey, that dude looks like a hero.”

By the measurements of history, a hero is someone who acts in a crisis when others are running away. They want to run too, but they don’t.

But heroes are also unsung most of the time. Nobody points them out, and nobody even knows their names. They help others. They give money to the poor. They defended the defenseless. They act in the moment without hesitation, not because they want to be heroic, but because it’s the right thing to do.

There are heroes all around us. They are faceless until their moments come to act. These men and women fade back into the crowd. You’ll never find them. But they are still there.

On the other hand, villains grab headlines and try to stay in the spotlight, loving and craving attention. They sway everything from individual to crowd behavior, until the fanatics they most appeal to surround them.

Hitler was one such man, and we in the United States are now led by someone who has taken his playbook word for word. If he is not stopped, World War Three will soon commence. Some believe it has already begun. It hasn’t, and this is nothing compared to what’s coming.

When the United Nations relocates to another country, you will be told that they are traitors and cowards, and more.

People still venomously defend our “president,” if that’s what he is. Their arguments include “who has he gassed?”

Just because something has not yet happened, doesn’t mean it won’t.

Photographs from El Salvador show very clearly that bad things are happening. The Trump support base says “they’re just gang bangers.”

They are repeating what they’re told. Not what’s true, and the truth is that ICE is grabbing arbitrary people including real citizens. There are no formal hearings. No legal aid is offered; rather, it is flatly denied. Those people will all die in a place too terrible to comprehend if you are sane.

I served the United States of America. I would never bear arms against it.

But a monarchy, a crown? I’d fight that. A fascist authoritarian regime? I would defend others against it if I weren’t already dying. I have to sit on my ass, watching this horror evolve.

My conclusion, therefore, has merit: the United States of America no longer exists. Like global warming, I believe the damage is too extensive for recovery.

This is why I warn travelers from other countries not to come here. Not for vacation, tourism, business or any other reason. You may never see home again, and there is nothing here that is worth your life.

*The United States is now a terrorist threat.

*The nights here hold a darkness and fear I have never seen. The sounds of small arms fire puncture the peace of the night, reminding me that everything is different now.

And I have nothing positive to say. If I tried, I would have to lie to you. I can’t do that.

Hug your children. Your spouses. Tell them they are loved and treasured. Keep them safe.

And pray. To God, the Father, your Abba. Never pray to anything else. Have faith in Him. And maybe, He already knows that we need a hero.

Stay safe, my friends, be well. May God bless you and keep you safe.

It’s a Dark Day for America – and for the World

The swearing in of Donald Trump as our next president is like the Doomsday Clock being reset to midnight.

This babbling, lying, evil Antichrist is everything that the world doesn’t need right now.

He’s a racist, a misogynistic sex offender, a senior citizen who acts like an evil little boy with no interest in toys but a keen passion for destruction and death. Chaos is imminent.

Personally, I’m forced to apologize on behalf of my fellow citizens who, though opposed to Trump, would never elect a woman as leader of my country.

Yes, I mean to sincerely apologize.

There are people in this country and the world over who don’t deserve this – and what is sure to follow.

As my life wanes, I believe I’m fortunate in that I won’t be here for another four years. I did put up new Christmas lights this year, but I threw them away around a week ago. I kept one string for my bedroom because I no longer have a tolerance for the dark. I believe my Christmas Curse has been paid for in full. I’m finished.

I’m not afraid, but I do worry about you, wherever you are. I’ll be leaving behind a shell of pain, but you will be entering the worst time in modern history.

We are in a worldwide famine. Only rapid depopulation (like a really big war) can stop that. Global warming has not been disproven by our current weather; indeed, it was stated long ago that such weather would be driven by a warmer Earth. And one reason it feels so cold is because we’ve already changed and “normal” is no longer what it was. And in the face of recent past winters, even a trace of snow and ice seems like a catastrophe.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

The wildfires in the US West are the result of winds coming in and being driven through the Santa Ana Mountains, drying everything out even worse than drought had already started (climate change has made these winds more likely in January). All it takes then is a discarded cigarette or cigar, or an idiot with a can of Zippo fluid and a pack of matches.

But whether it’s carelessness or arson, it’s all done. People have lost everything they own in an inferno. Those people were fortunate, but they don’t feel like it. Others died.

Being burned alive is no way to die.

We’re in a bad place. Insurance companies are nothing more than thieves with a license to steal and even to kill. The homeless are now dependent on others for “charity” as a Republican put it.

This is all “apocalyptic,” and if you scoff now, that will soon change.

If you choose to ignore the danger, that’s your choice to make. But you may be overwhelmed by the fear of what’s coming, and trying to be optimistic and numbing the fear.

Or maybe you’re full of the lies pushed by idiot politicians and you’ve been manipulated by the press, which is never about the truth. It’s about being sensational, titillating and peddling bullshit that will fill commercial ad space. Sell the lies, sell the products; it’s all for the money.

Artificial Intelligence is not your friend and should be tightly controlled. Well, it should have been. That ship has long since left port. Don’t trust anything.

This time I call on the people of good conscience to unite against treasonous oligarchs, billionaires, and those who are evil everywhere. The line must be drawn here: this far, no further!

Because it’s your last chance. And no matter how far into the Trump cult you are, I give you fair warning here and now that you and your children have no idea how your fervent loyalty is about to be repaid. You should be mortified by what you’ve done.

Shame on you, America. The sun will not set on this day before the chaos begins.

May God have mercy.

Here’s something to REALLY scare you and something really quiet to help you deal with it.

There are so many videos on YouTube about the end times that they’re impossible to miss.

Granted, some are nothing more than a bowl of lies.

Others make you think about it. But with the warning that the time of the return of the Son of Man is known only to God, and of that time and day, we are not to speculate, let’s dip into it just a little bit.

First, there’s this article from The Hill about how dangerous AI has become. It is quite a read. Everyone should read it; it’s scary, but unfortunately, it’s true.

Next, let’s hit the scripture. Daniel, Psalms, Isaiah, the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation to John all say what will happen just before, then during, the return of Christ.

I’m not going to itemize chapter and verse.

As I’ve often written, all of the ingredients are in place. The four horsemen may be currently releasing one at a time… or all at once.

The first horseman has a nature always in debate. He is wearing a crown, and he goes forth conquering and to conquer. Some have said he is the Antichrist, others that he beats whole countries into submission with lies and other types of deception. See where deepfakes now become part of that possible identity? I don’t believe that this is the Antichrist, but it is possible. He will be the embodiment of evil, and Satan, as Jesus said, is the father of all lies. The first horse is white, the rider carrying a bow. Do not confuse this with the white horse that will be ridden by the returning Christ.

It’s okay to guess, but remember that there are three more with him.

The second horse is red. He that rides this horse carries a battle sword. He goes forth after the second seal is broken by the Lamb (Jesus). This rider looks battle-hardened and tough. He will bring war and make already hostile internal conflicts in certain countries worse, bringing the Earth to disaster and death.

The third horseman rides a black horse. He is the only one John hears receiving orders. Wheat and barley measured by a scale the rider carries, a quart, and 3 quarts each, respectively, for a day’s pay. He is also cautioned by the voice not to harm the oil and the wine. The oil is not petroleum. This would be an oil associated with food or food preparation; remember that this rider appears wan and starving, very thin. This oil could be olive oil because grapes and olive trees can adapt to growth in places they did not before. Global warming has already caused vineyards to stop producing, and vines are being planted in places they wouldn’t have survived before. The idea that wine and oil are not to be touched by the bringer of global famine seems trivial until you consider that there will be widespread unemployment and a failure of wages to keep up with the cost of living. These things are already happening, and they will only get worse. The tipping point for global warming has been passed, and anyone who tells you otherwise is badly deluded. We haven’t seen anything yet.

Oil could also symbolize water, strangely enough. At the rate we’re going, potable water will be scarce. Heat will drain reservoirs, and rain will become more toxic. Microplastics have been detected in the drinking water of every state tested; they’re found in blood samples and in organs, including the brain. Not only that, but lead, arsenic, and other “forever chemicals” are also present. There are currently no filters capable of rendering pure water.

The fourth horseman is the most terrifying of all. Covid was bad enough; this rider, on a pale horse, has a name: Death. Along with him, trailing behind is Hades. Not the Greek god, but literally, “the Pit.” A place only unbelievers can go.

Most scholars believe that the true Christians will not be here when Death arrives, that a “rapture” will occur when the faithful will be taken up to Heaven. Pentecostals believe this because they posit that the Holy Spirit can’t be present when these calamities begin. I tend to agree, but I’m unwilling to bet my soul on it. I want you to be ready now because even tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to any of us. Besides, would you really want to see these things happen, sure that you can keep sinning and repent at the last minute? I pity anyone who thinks that’s possible. It isn’t.

The rider named Death has orders to kill by war, pestilence and wild animals desperate to eat, driven mad or bold by heat, starvation, and lack of water. Some would be driven more savage by the spread of rabies.

Pestilence means disease and a proliferation of invasive predator insects thriving in elevated heat. Forget insecticides and fungicides; they can’t stop what’s coming.

Some diseases, rare in the West, like ebola, will easily live in the higher temperatures we’re about to reach. Don’t be tempted: no source that I consider reliable can tell us when the temperatures reach the breaking point. First, I read an article that says global warming is accelerating and much faster than anticipated. Then I come across an article that says it’s slower than they thought. The layperson doesn’t know what to believe. I have a rule about this. Believe that terrible things are happening right now, and far worse is yet to come. Forget choosing which ones are right; live each day as if it is your last. Walk with God, pray often, resist temptation, and stay alert. Urge others to take the opportunity to believe in Christ and turn away from sin because time really could be running out. I believe it is. I urge you not to bet your soul on having time enough to sin now and turn later to Christ.

When the events of the end times continue after the first four seals are broken, people will know what’s happening. The whole world will be shaken, like one big earthquake everywhere at the same time. By then, they should already know, but they’re going to be stubborn. They will be full of hate at God. They’ll try to escape falling buildings to caves and beg rocks to fall on them because the terrible judgment of God is coming. But they won’t talk to God and beg forgiveness. They’ll talk to rocks. How pitiful those souls are. God, however, will not have any pity for them. They had their chance and more and turned away from God. That’s earning them eternal punishment. Eternity in agony.

I’m telling you, God doesn’t want that for you. There’s time. You can still be saved by the sacrifice that has already been made for your salvation. You’ll be free of sin and gain peace in your heart and mind that you have never known. The ransom has already been paid.

Please don’t waste that.

I’m not a preacher. I’m uneducated. I’m poor. I make no money from ads you may see here. I don’t seek sponsors, and I don’t care about money. I’m simply putting out the distress signal that trouble is coming, and I don’t want you to miss the call to repent. You must forgive what can’t be forgotten. You must let go of hate, anger, and bitterness. Stop blaming others for your every tribulation. Let go of lust and the sins of the flesh. None of these things have ever truly benefited you. They just drag you down deeper into darkness, and I’ve seen that darkness. I never want to see it again. And you shouldn’t either.

This is the time. Repent, because you may never get another chance.

May you be moved by the Holy Spirit, and may Jesus Christ come into your heart. I’m praying for you.

Wasn’t that lovely?

My friend, my brother, my sister,

I know you’re hurting. I have, too. I still do.

I know you are lonely. I used to be.

I know you feel like this is all so pointless. Hopeless. I’ve been there.

I know you’ve known great loss. So have I. I feel your grief.

I know you feel lost. You need a direction. I’ve spent most of my life lost in the dark.

I know that you are tired. Tired of everything. I have carried that burden. This is your time to find rest and hope, a new direction, a way to escape bitterness and anger and hatred. And this is your time to be renewed, to let go of your burdens and emotional things that drag you down. Here are the lyrics to the beautiful song I’ve posted above. I’ve known people who cried before they could get through these words. But that’s not because they’re sad. It’s a touching call to you from Jesus. He wants to be in your life. He doesn’t like seeing you hurting and trying to get through everything by yourself when He can help if you just answer this call.

Lyrics:

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me
See on the portals He’s waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me

Come home, come home
Ye who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling, “O sinner come home”

O for the wonderful love He has promised
Promised for you and for me
Though we have sinned He has mercy and pardon
Pardon for you and for me

Come home, come home
Ye who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling, “O sinner come home”

Come home, come home (come home)
Ye who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling, “O sinner come home”

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Will L. Thompson

Softly and Tenderly lyrics © Bluewater Music Corp., BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

May God bless you.

Ah, So You Poke The Hornet’s Nest?

What do you complain about the most?

I think that, perhaps, the above question was offered by someone who had read my last post. What they provoke in this way from others does not concern me. My insouciance will not be moved; my ennui will never allow it.

It is possible that some may, incorrectly, land on the certainty that I complain constantly without cease. Or perhaps that Taylor Swift is the main target of my criticism, my source of causticity, and its resultant acidic release.

Taylor Swift is rarely on my mind. However, even if I lack the respect I once had for her, she is hardly the muse responsible for my complete and unrelenting anger; she has no such power over me, and I realize how other people in her “cult” of unreasonable fans had swayed my opinion of her.

While the idea that I am an “anti-Swifty” may seem to set me apart from you and everyone you know, I am hardly a lone wolf in this area. For every Swifty, there are hundreds of people who are even more disenchanted, jaded, and weary of her. We have had enough.

I have gone astray, however, in calling the NFL a “fixed” sport. It seems to me that I’ve heard this before from kooks who love to sit around and, in a partly paranoid and delusional state, put hands to keyboard and declare that this event or that incident was the result of a conspiracy.

This nonsense became a conspiracy theory regarding the NFL. There is, however, little to no proof of any such thing. For one to exist, the conspiracy itself would have to be small or compartmented in such a way that if one person (it’s already happened with more than one), a player, coach, or owner leaked information on it, there would be serious consequences. For one, the biggest asset the NFL has is its fans. Imagine the terror they would unleash if they found or were presented with proof that everything is scripted, like the WWF (did John Stossel really have to ask)? I knew it when I was a kid. I could see that for every punch one wrestler threw, one of them would stomp as if it were a real blow. It covered what was usually just a lack of sound.

That fans bought it for so long horrified me. Every time Chief J Strongbow let himself get beaten enough to, were it real, fall down and die, only to suddenly go into a war dance and unleash his well-acted fury, I knew what I was seeing. However, I never made a big deal about it, and from 1974 to 2000, I rarely paid any attention to wrestling. That was excellent timing, as I consider, and I am not alone on this, 2000 to be the best year wrestling ever had, and one which could not be repeated. Yet I never heard any conspiracy theories about wrestling except for the hostile takeovers and buyouts that doomed the WWE to its present, boring state.

What vexed me recently into giving the NFL or Taylor Swift any room on my site may not have anything to do with sports-fixing. Then again, no one can prove that there does not exist any rigging or predetermined “script”, or that the obviously, flagrantly bad calls by the officials I have seen this season did not happen.

Detractors of the NFL conspiracy theories all point out that there are laws that bind the league to prevent any cheating or tanking in any way. However, I challenge you to give me one example of any corporate entity or company large enough to have the power to do things such as price fixing that actually follows the letter of the law, and I will call you on the spot for your proof, which you, of course, will not have.

What draws most of my complaints is hardly Taylor Swift or her newest temporary boyfriend. It isn’t the constant news coverage they get, nor is it the media telling people to watch them, to cheer them on, to love them. The romance will end badly. It may even be messy. I know this just as I knew that the Ravens were not supposed to win. The Chiefs were scoreless in the second half. They did not need to score; it was already over.

My biggest concern, and what I complain most about, aside from my failures and the attendant self-loathing they have caused, is the incredibly uncaring and cavalier attitude people have toward global warming, crime and corporate power, used to further threaten life on earth and steal money from people who do not have any. This corporate power is responsible for the shocking response to the Affordable Health Care Act.

Insurance companies write inscrutable policies that even established attorneys cannot unlock the secrets of. Between that and crime, a lack of governmental concern over firearm availability and the sickening statistics that this lack of concern reflects, people are dying.

These are not deaths from highway accidents, resort conditions, home, or household accidents. No, these deaths are the most heinous things that can happen to people: premature, hollow, meaningless, and unnecessary deaths. There is no glory, no honor, and nothing about such an ending that is good. It’s just evil and tragic.

Please note, I do not for one second believe in fate or “dying for a reason” or “it was his or her time” to go. That’s weak rationalization, which is to say, a pack of lies.

Perhaps you would like to tell a grieving spouse, parent, or sibling that their loved one was murdered by someone with an assault rifle because it was “their time” or worse, that it was “God’s will“. You deserve to be slapped if you say such things.

Answer this question: how many mass shootings took place in the United States in 2023?

You don’t know, do you? Because corporate news stopped telling you. I place even odds that nobody knows, that the books have been cooked to the point that the truth cannot be known. This would constitute a real conspiracy if I am even close. But no one can prove me right…or wrong.

Another killer is fentanyl. It’s everywhere. People claim that it’s a myth that police officers can’t be affected by just touching it or inhaling residual dust. We’re whitewashing a killer. The reason? No one wants to know about it. There’s almost as much misinformation on fentanyl as there still is about Covid-19.

Corporate media covers for corporations that are killing our last chances of surviving global warming. I’ve often said that the “temperature threshold” is already passed, and we’ve crossed the no return line drawn in the sand. No one can even see the line anymore; to many people have kicked sand over it. While wars continue, the need to cut reliance on oil is left out of discussion. We are, as a species, headed inexorably toward extinction. If there’s a way to stop that mass extinction, it lies more in the realm of fantasy than truth. I’m always sorry to write this, but I just don’t believe reliance on fossil fuels will stop.

What’s that you see in a child’s eyes? The desire to be a child, to play, be with friends, grow and become someone important?

Or do you see shock, mute and staring, after their home was destroyed by a rocket attack?

What’s that in that little boy’s eyes? Wonder at the world around him, the possibilities?

Or is it the dull stare of a little kid who’s just been raped by his father? Neither child can ever know trust again. Will never know peace or a world without the innocence it once had for them.

These are the things I complain about the most. The things I care about the most. Sometimes, I believe that we deserve to become extinct. God gave us a beautiful, bountiful place to live and the ability to thrive and to take care of what we’ve been blessed with.

But we deny his existence and fill fields that were once lush and beautiful with trees, grass, and flowers with sewage and toxic sludge.

Folks, those are the things I complain about the most. And I am not about to stop.

Sovereign Twatsmanship

Let me tell you something you may already know, but which I have only just been made aware of. It’s called various things, mainly “sovereign citizenship,” and my God is it a load of bullshit.

Until today, I thought that I was just hearing domestic (United States) terrorists and a few questionable dicks with really stupid excuses for breaking the law. But no. Oh, no, it is so much more than that, and it is spreading.

In a nutshell, (wait, wait: I meant nutsack, as in a shriveled scrotum) sovereign citizenship is described by Wikipedia as pseudolaw or, as I would put it, “Willful Delusional Affective Disorder” (WDAD) coupled with “Entitled Serial Criminal Retention On Whim (ESCROW)” syndrome. The whimsical part is more insidious than you think; it is a choice, based more upon the spewing forth of sewage from people who know better but are anti-establishment dicks who have their own personal problems with the federal government and, as it is usually the case because they owe money, don’t want to pay up.

These dicks came to my attention while I was watching a YouTube compilation of police bodycam footage. One thing led to another, and after an hour of Karens being arrested, there came in the queue a solid 2 hours of this shit mixed with more Karens and brats. I loved it when the old drunk Polish guy tried to use his son’s status as an FBI agent as an excuse for driving under the influence and threatening officers. Oh, and then there is one where a woman is so wasted she actually uses a wet wipe as a cellphone.

I wonder how police officers ever manage to get people like this processed without falling down in tears, laughing like hell. But most of the time, they do, although I’ve caught a few wide, guffaw-stifling grins by officers backing up the responding officer, which is one of the most rewarding and hilarious things to see anywhere, even on YouTube or Tiktok. Incidentally, it seems that Tiktok “celebrities” are shown in these videos as entitled twats who inevitably ask the officers, “Do you know who I am?”. No, you wannabes, they don’t know who you are, and just because you have a thousand followers on some Chinese app does not mean that you are supposed to be treated any differently than everyone else. Dumbasses!

In addition to potentially polluting the genetic pool of humanity, these cretins threaten the lives of people with anti-vaccination beliefs and the dissemination of weirdo and dangerous ideas like “sovereign citizenship,” which, ironically, began with white supremacists and hippies but has now spread to other ethnicities and groups.

In the video I watched, one white woman and one black male claimed during road stops that they did not need a driver’s license to drive a car, mainly because cars are not commercial vehicles.

It turned out that they once had a license, which proves my acronym accurate, but with a catch: those licenses were suspended or expired or revoked, usually, I found upon research, because they owed outstanding traffic tickets. In other words, they’re twats who should never even have had a license to begin with. Point being, that if they once had a license, they were using the sovereign bullshit as an excuse. That’s so lame that at first I just thought they were delusional, but it turns out that they have been on the internet too long and chosen to use a ludicrous doctrine they knew to be false as a reason to break the law.

Yes, they do appear to be crazy, and no, they really aren’t. When the officer gets so fed up asking you to step put of the car that he has to break your window to force you out, you’re already in some deep doodoo. Should have done what the officer said, you dickheads. Or maybe not broken the law in the first place. This excuse bullshit is getting on my fucking nerves. While being locked up or processed, you do not get to use PTSD as a reason for failing to comply with officers’ orders. PTSD is not even a defense that will stand up in a court of law, and it’s dishonorable to even try.

In one of the videos, a woman tries to outrun police cruisers with a Tesla! What the fuck is that?

Look, I know that I am not alone here. You may have thought that sovereign shit was confined to white redneck ranch owners, but we were wrong, okay? And while the tentacles of lunacy like anti-vaccination and other fringe twatsmanship like common law and sovereignty are spreading, this country is in danger.

For now, the sovereign citizenship twats are not connected, and thank God for that. But that’s only because shit like this is being used by individuals more than groups. If, however, they do become more widespread, eventually, they would overlap. There are instances already of prominent people of color still endorsing The Donald. I couldn’t get my head around that at all, but now I think it’s possible.

I’m a layperson, having no formal education or degree in psychology or letters trailing my name. But I don’t need them to see what’s coming. You are not going to like it.

Already antisemitism, a poison doctrine of hatred, is coming out of the shadows. I know people who are right here, in the land of the free, who fear for their lives should they wear their star of David pendants. That’s unfortunate, unfair, and unforgivable. We fought and bled and sacrificed lives in Europe to stop a monster who had an expansionist agenda and a plan to kill every Jew in every country they came to occupy. You piss on the graves of our fallen by your similar doctrines, and I’m ashamed of you.

Did they really die for nothing? None of them wanted to die, but they knew the enemy. They knew the danger it posed to the world, and they died heroes, the best of us all. They held sacrifice, duty, courage and honor above themselves and their lives and proved it with every grave dug, every posthumous Medal of Honor, every purple heart, every single drop of blood they shed, every home they returned to different than they were when they left. The veterans who survived, the honored dead, they meant something. They stood for something. Racial hatred is the most dishonorable way to repay their sacrifices.

I understand the bitterness over Netanyahu, but he’s a scrote, and the whole world knows that. But most Israeli people don’t like his arbitrary bombing, because they are an honorable people who collectively remember the worst the human race can dish out.

I’m against bombing non-strategic targets. Killing civilians was an unavoidable circumstance in the air war over Europe in World War Two; today, precision missiles make this avoidable.

But, as terrorists do, Hamas uses civilians as shields. Tactically, there’s no real way of getting around that. Biden has warned Netanyahu to stop the bombing or risk losing all international support, but the Prime Minister does not listen, nor is he feeling compelled to listen. And to zealots here, this is being called “biblical” and “apocalyptic.” And for all I know, it could be (I am not an escatologist).

That’s because people can be real dicks. Killing, global warming, drought of record proportion in the Amazon basin and rainforest, it all fits. The setup is certainly there for something apocalyptic.

From conveniently choosing a criminal (ESCROW) point of view to the worst drought in the known history of Brazil to wars that will spread, the human race has condemned itself.

Rise above twatsmanship and hate. Be a responsible citizen. Stand for what’s right. Help children. Protect them as if they were your very own. Reject antisemitism and respect the law. Be kind to yourself and others. This may be your last chance.

These are some examples, although I haven’t seen the whole video, watch how fast things go south for the second and third ones from the beginning.

I’ve never heard of a guy suddenly opening a door right beside officers and not being riddled with bullets, so the narrator is somewhat difficult to understand. When officers taze the man from the hallway, it is not an overreaction. The fool was lucky that the officers didn’t shoot. It would have been a righteous shoot, but they were clearly well trained and had experience.

Don’t act like a twat. You won’t end up on YouTube and in jail. Don’t adhere to nutty, loony horseshit pseudolaw and I won’t laugh at you. Don’t knowingly break the real law, and you won’t look like a twat.

It’s as simple as that.

Gas Masks Won’t Save You

I’m trying to watch Gameranx on YouTube. By the way, my YouTube channel is down. I’m so crushed by the news, aren’t you? Someone complaining I guess, I don’t know, about community guidelines. Some shit, whatever, I don’t know and it was not specific. Have you noticed that Google has been rather sensitive lately?

Of course you haven’t, it’s a corporation. But when the Google AI search engine began to spit out frankly scary results about slavery being beneficial for slaves, the bloody thing, which is still in beta test mode, caught everyone off-guard. I left a Meta comment and was immediately rejoined by some republican rooster who had been brain-raped by Fox News and who said something about how liberals had caused the housing crisis, or some such partisan chickenshit. Holy hell. Didn’t even make sense.

Google isn’t showing any more signs of respect toward the responsibility of using AI than Microsoft or any other corporate institution. But that is completely off the rails from what I’m talking about. Because I don’t give a hoot in hell about having my own YouTube channel. Like I’ve said before, I have the face for audio only, and the voice of a writer. I don’t make videos. So fuck whoever complained, I hope they feel better now.

Anyway, I’m watching today’s Gameranx top ten list. Falcon is doing the “Dumbest video game endings”, and I’m laughing.

Until a commercial ad stops the vid and a voice strangely close to Donald Trump’s asks, “Do you own a gas mask?”

It goes on to cite “Homeland Security” and proclaims that a disaster which will kill 9 out of every ten people is about to happen. It could be today, next month, whatever, but it’s going to happen.

The exact nature of this existential calamity is never described. But there’s a link to other products you should also have. So it’s a damn doomsday site. Designed to terrify people into buying shitty products that wouldn’t keep them alive for any substantial amount of time if the disaster it warns of really were to happen.

Going through my archives will no doubt confuse you. I’ve been saying for years that we don’t have much time left before things we’ve never stopped to think about will really happen.

I’ve written enough on the subject. Nobody read those posts. No one ever will. You know why?

Because people don’t know what to do about doomsday predictions. I’ve never been one to pull a punch, so I’ll just say this as plainly as I can: scientists, sociologists and others are saying that, and this is not conjecture, by mid-century at the latest, the current mass-extinction event, and it’s absolutely underway, will end civilization as we have known it.

Earth’s current human population is not sustainable, they say, and global warming is responsible for much of what’s to come. As crops wither in drought and freak flooding, and violent storms spawn tornadoes and dangerous hail and lightning, food will become ever more scarce. Again, I’m not the one saying this; I’ve said it all before. This is a bunch of urgent messages from scientists from climatologists to archeologists, anthropologists and more.

In human history, no temperature recordings match what last month produced. The hottest July in recorded history.

Wildfires chewed through the Canadian wilderness and for the second year plagued Greece, the last outpost of paradise left on earth. Hawaii got hit so hard by fires that it can never recover. Trauma and ruined lives are widespread. Hunger, high prices and demands on infrastructure that cannot be met will continue without relief.

Now, again. This is coming from experts. Not laypeople, who should in any event be able to see what’s happening and know that it can’t be stopped now.

The changes we had to make are past due. We didn’t do a thing. SUVs are selling like scratch-and-dent Ferraris. Electric vehicles charge by coal-burning power plants. Lies about climate action surround us and even plastic recycling is a lie. We’re not helping, not preventing anything. And all of that, and more, is real.

Then comes this Doomsday guy urging us to buy gas masks. I didn’t click the link to see what else was on sale, no doubt at “cut-rate” prices. I’d vomit.

Not out of fear: because it’s disgusting to watch religious or other fanatics hawking “survival” gear to gullible and easily frightened people. It’s just gross.

And dishonest: no gas mask will save you from a disaster that takes 9 of every ten lives, and in any event, I wouldn’t want to live through such hell.

Something tells me that whoever is behind this bullshit is attempting to capitalize on the reports of extinction level events which are ongoing. What Doomsday peppers always forget when the backhoes break ground for their modular bunkers is that they can only live in them for so long, and that in reality, living in one for a year would drive most people insane. Extend that time, and their fates are sealed, as much as their bodies are, in the tombs they paid more cash for than a crypt.

What could make you need a gas mask? Well, fallout ain’t it. Assuming that you survive a nuclear strike, a gas mask is useless. Those things can’t screen radioactive material. It’s a strictly chemical warfare piece of gear. You know how National Guard and riot police use them when shooting CS grenades? They would also be worn in a chemical attack. Mustard gas, nerve gas, it doesn’t matter, so the ultimate question is, why hawk the damn things on YouTube?

That’s an easily answered question:

Scare the shit out of people, and they’ll buy shit.

It ain’t right, should be illegal, but no matter what you or I think, it works.

How I long for the old days of people being harmlessly fooled by buying sea monkeys out of comic book ads.

I wonder if I can still buy them…

AI is Full of Gorilla Shit

You might think that AI is useful. Maybe you’re right. Or maybe you have already been conditioned to a predisposed assumption, even a conviction, that AI is the solution to some, perhaps even all, of our problems. That it’s just a matter of time and tweaks.

In that case, I’d have to break Rule #1 of my own (revised) list of no-no things to do in blogging: “Don’t Insult Your Own Audience”.

What I’m trying to say is that you’re an idiot.

First off, I’m going to repeat myself: no machine can ever gain self-awareness or magically just have a soul.

It is not possible, however much you wish it, no matter how many movies you’ve seen, no matter what you’ve read, and no matter who says what on YouTube, for truly intelligent and aware machines to ever exist.

Does this upset you, this outlandish absolutist statement from a lowly layperson who once thought a motherboard was a reference to equipment for middle-aged female surfers?

Or perhaps you, like I do, have the advantage of distance and uninvolved perspective, and can see what developers do not? Do we share some measure, you and I, of trepidation, even fear, of what horrors can, and even have already, come from AI usage?

Then you may be even more widely read than myself about the subject.

If so, I offer you this praise: you’re nobody’s fool.

You maintain perspective and cannot be swayed by leading articles which hail artificial intelligence as the greatest invention of all time, humanity’s pinnacle of accomplishment. Because you know that’s not true. And you know, more than most, that like everything else humans have “created” or discovered, it will be used for evil, exploitation, war, greed and the ruin of countries by other countries.

It has already been in development for all of these things, and hackers, traffickers and spies are, and have been, calling for more of this deadly tech.

As it stands right now, I contend that beyond rudimentary applications, AI is useless or worse, especially when it produces anything that is released to the public or a community such as certain science disciplines, most notably without oversight.

Already misinformation has been disseminated by AI, and at present we cannot determine how much material is out there. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic and attendant lockdown, Microsoft and others laid off or fired thousands of workers. Working from home was great, but the articles and testimonials about and by people allowed that luxury eclipsed an ugly truth: millions lost their jobs. Some, we knew, were in the service or hospitality industry: waiters had no one to serve in closed restaurants. Bartenders, line cooks, master chefs, store owners and employees not deemed “critical”, and scores of others watched helplessly their way of life and their careers vanish forever. Businesses failed. Did they know, that last night they locked up and turned out the lights, that it was the end?

In the quiet that followed, late night talk shows broadcast from the host’s homes in a surreal spot of history that too many have already forgotten, so traumatized were they. Buried memories, covered over by whatever was convenient or necessary until now, a mere three years later, it might never have happened at all.

Except it did.

Millions died. A camera facing Times Square showed traffic sawhorses and nothing else, an image of post-apocalyptic, dystopian emptiness none should ever forget.

Empty chairs at the dinner table, in the living room, the nursing homes…and the empty beds to match.

Traffic, non-existent on rural and suburban streets: at night, so quiet that one felt, not peace, but only a creepiness, a sadness, despair: was this the end? Or how the end starts?

No one knew.

In places, the deniers: restaurants remained open. Spring Break in Florida. Reports of outbreaks squelched, or at least padded, by denial specialists and some news outlets who would go on to scoff at or darkly warn against vaccinations. None of it stopped people from dying, or from surviving, but with long-term effects.

Amid this horrific and tragic setting: MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Every day, the death count. Always there, on the right side of the screen. Every morning, a new total. You couldn’t look away. That intrepid crew never was known for pulling punches. Creds for that.

And then there was Trump, who, after screwing up and making psychotic statements, or, more exactly, spewing shit that got people killed because they trusted him, managed a fait accompli:

With most of his damage already done, with enough disinformation and confusion among the people, he “tried to be helpful”, but merely showed his deplorable ignorance and his need to control his team of experts, whom he often contradicted or even berated in press conferences. He actually, without any refinement attempted, suggested that bodies be opened to accommodate UV light devices and, worse, that products like Mr. Clean be used for clearing lung infections. No one in modern history has ever heard a US president say anything quite like that, but no matter. People apparently tried his “cure” suggestions. How many is not known. That even one person tried it is sickening.

And this is exactly where today’s post becomes relevant.

In the midst of Covid-19, Microsoft — MSN– got rid of its reporting staff, or most of it.

What stood in their shoes?

This did. And it isn’t funny. Imagine why; if you’re human, it shouldn’t be hard.

The article in the link is scary, but humans have been replaced by machines for decades, so this is nothing new. In Baltimore at the General Motors plant, there had been steady news reports since at least the 70s of robots on the assembly line. It wasn’t a unique case. Welders, painters, it didn’t matter; one by one, the jobs were no longer for humans. People flooded unemployment offices carrying their pink slips, held as delicately as calloused hands could have done, and another Maryland unemployment rate hike hit the news with ice-cold numbers that could never tell newspaper readers or local TV news viewers what it really meant. Not to those who had once earned a good income and were suddenly facing default on their mortgages. Feeding hungry children who were used to Christmas presents and hot meals faced an abruptly horrible reality of hunger gnawing on stale bread and cut-rate bologna. Marriages ended. There were homicides and suicides. Desperation turned quickly to despair and after despair, there was nothing.

AI is the new assembly line robot. Who dreamed, back in the 60s, that the major changes that happened could even be possible? That then, at the beginning of a career, that Westinghouse, the Bell system, General Electric, General Motors and other giants would fail, automate, or break up?

Jobs were never guaranteed for life unless you were a Supreme Court Justice. But most offered steady, union represented, honorable work. And if that’s been torn down over the decades since, mainly because of politics and its dirty-secret bed companion, the economy, then there is much more to follow. This is compounded by AI, which has its unshakable place cemented in the future like global warming has.

And both are deeply complicated subjects, which works well for tech corporations and politicians, but not for us, whether you once thought motherboards were oceanic wave gliders for MILFs or not. While the rich, powerful owners of this world think we’re still down here dropping simian feces, we’re still the only ones who get the final say, and we’re dangerously close to giving it up. We vote. We pay. We decide which is real, and which is gorilla shit.

When an AI writes about places to visit, and includes an entry on a food bank and suggests visiting it on an empty stomach, that is gorilla shit. It begs the question of how much more gorilla shit is out there, and has been since 2020.

It’s your move.

But know this:

Generations alive now have lived in some kind of terror all our lives.

The Cold War paralyzed us with daily fear that at any second, all that we know and love could be vaporized.

The AIDS epidemic made sexual contact a haunting thing. It could somehow go undetected for years. Nobody knew if they had it or not, despite early perception that it was a “gay” disease only “degenerate men” got. Then the truth was discovered. It was an everyone disease, and it killed.

9/11/01 brought a new kind of terror to the United States: there was no target, no place, no building anywhere that could truly be protected, and the world had become more sinister and dangerous than we ever dreamed.

Mass shootings haven’t let up. Kids who should be worrying about nothing more scary than report cards or being rejected by a crush have to go to school not knowing if they’ll live to see home again.

Covid-19 has shown us true terror of the unknown and the unseen. We lost so much. Grieve so many. There’s PTSD that’s real, damage we cannot repair. We went from using wipes on our groceries to wearing improvised face masks to getting all of the recommended vaccinations and we got rid of Trump. Quietly, President Biden helped us get away from the edge of an abyss. He does not get his due, not even grudgingly.

A call has gone forth from the political right: we don’t deserve a democracy so let’s find a dictator.

A dictator. What a pile of simian feces.

It has all numbed us. Injured us. It’s too much.

And yet, you must hold onto hope that we as a species can overcome. And, Americans, how it all plays out?

That’s entirely up to you.

The Rise Of Nazi America

No, I’m not engaging in hype. Nor is the title a joke. In truth, this has been coming for a long time.

I read an article. Does anyone remember the SCORPION Unit? The Memphis Police Department 40-man unit accused this January of beating Tyre Nichols to death? The “SCORPION 5” were the five officers of the MPD unit involved in the death. The unit was disbanded. The fallout was inevitable. Under pressure, MPD buried the SCORPION.

But there’s a problem. It’s two-fold: crimes and the public fear they generate, and a police department unable to handle it with no more fallout. How can such a balance be possible?

There is no way. It’s gone too far. So when talk of a new, smaller unit to calm the youth crime problems reached the public, well….

Let’s just start at the beginning.

When SCORPION was involved and held responsible for beating Nichols so severely that he died, there were some who didn’t care, and of course that’s always true in any case of injustice. But questions had to be asked: how many police “special units” had done this type of thing? How did special units always seem to devolve into something less than what they were intended to be? How many times had people been killed by special units, especially in urban, high-crime areas, such as the ones SCORPION was charged with patrolling?

Those kinds of questions don’t get much in the way of answers, but we know the root cause. That is, if you give any military or police unit a designated task and the area of operations is open to attack or is in high crime or free-fire zones, all hell breaks loose. Most people know that power corrupts. The more power given, the more corrupt the empowered become.

Given specific designations, then placed in areas where soldiers or police are under extraordinary stress for almost the entirety of their tour or shift, everything necessary for extreme conflict is in place. You know what happens next.

The few men and women with law enforcement or military operations charged with keeping order while under constant pressure, or fear, inevitably cross a line that they become less concerned with each time they go out. More research must be done to help military command and police training and supervision understand and therefore more capable of mitigating the circumstances that cause the horrendous results of their own failure or ability to train and dispatch personnel.

You immediately think, Hey, just weed out the assholes, but it’s not so easy. Of course, there are trainees that fail to make the cut, but it is sobering to stop and be careful with a judgement like that. Some trainees do very well under controlled conditions, and they do equally well in initial field conditions.

They may even distinguish themselves as exemplary. But under fire, or in a high pressure, dangerous area, usually for extended shifts or days, they can and do overreact to the point of displaying a desperation and self protection that clearly is not warranted. It happens to soldiers and police and even security guards. Fight or flight goes out the door, replaced with no choice but to fight. At that point, fear and rage overtake the person and adrenaline courses like a high surf through their brain. They cannot think.

Those situations I understand because so many of us have been there: an impossible task, a wrong turn, a few random variables, and suddenly we are there.

What I do not understand is two or more police officers beating or shooting one individual to death. In a suspect who is on drugs there lies the potential for extreme danger. Hey, we get it. They don’t react to tasers and stun guns. Forget bean bags, pepper spray and gas. Nothing but a split second stands between you and death, or another person’s death, as is the case with a hostage when there’s no time for talk. That kind of decision I hope you never have to make. I’m glad I never did.

But then, even when a police shooting is clearly justified, what happens? The media. Soon, they have you questioning what you can see right there on the screen.

And then there is the nightmare stuff. Brutality and excessive force. I remember the night I saw the footage of the Rodney King beating. I had never seen anything like it. I knew that violence would follow. It did. And it was terrifying and sickening. It was never close to the ’65 and ’68 riots, but I didn’t remember much of those because there was less footage, most was on film, and reporters couldn’t remain in an area for long.

But after Rodney King, it kept happening. Then smart phones came along. Everyone had footage.

But there was immediately a problem. Both police and civilians edited the footage. And the media made everything worse.

Prior to the early 1970s, I rarely ever heard of a police officer getting shot. It happens all the time now.

Cops are in extreme danger every time they hit the streets. No matter where they are.

Republicans won’t do anything about the gun problem. The National Rifle Association was regaled by republican party dicks recently. Mike Pence was there. His reception was almost comical. But the scariest part is, the NRA was vetting candidates. And that’s a joke because they’re pro-MAGA and so are all republican politicians and voters. Because if by now you still call yourself a republican, you’re a MAGA party member. The NRA just wants to know who to support. Because mass shootings are too common and people are on the edge. Responsible gun owners are also involved because right wing media has brainwashed them into believing that if democrats get majority numbers in the House and Senate, their hunting rifles will be outlawed. Squads of police will come to take away their boy’s BB rifles.

This is a terrifying truth. They believe the lies. They really believe them.

Now that guns are open carry in places, the nuts can feel much safer buying what they want. AR-15 style rifles have more accessories than an Armani wardrobe. They’re often the weapon of choice in mass shootings. Gun sellers are not held to common standards of even the slightest responsibility in background checks and identification. Gun manufacturers will never be liable for the use of their products. There are no consequences to anyone except victims and their families. Even insurance companies refuse to pay out under whatever circumstances they care to quote. The families often get left to pay hospital bills, specialists, ambulance bills, funeral costs and more, making them victims all over again.

With guns everywhere, crime rising because of rising costs, drugs and more, we can see why the police are overwhelmed. And let’s get one thing straight right now: we all know that law and order meant something well before it was the title of shitty TV shows and spin-offs. We need our police. Life without them is not life. It’s death.

But solutions aren’t forthcoming, obvious or even reasonable when presented. And making it all worse, there are cops on the job who are idiots and racists, itching to take a shot at anyone in any groups or races whom they hate. Courts have convicted some killer cops, but for the most part, they get let free, and some get to go back to their jobs. The innocent cops are ruined even when exonerated. They will relocate, perhaps changing their name, but doomed for the rest of their lives to look over their shoulders.

The SCORPION Unit may be gone, but the MPD has conceived a new unit tasked with countering the “influx of calls” regarding teens and young adults in the city who are engaging in things like “soliciting” or selling candy, playing loud music and dancing.

It may be difficult to understand one side of this, because that side – the police side – has set vague guidelines for the small unit. Eight officers under two sergeants and a lieutenant would have to decide who to detain, and it gets more confusing when you read that there would be a prohibition against officers taking a detainee to a residence. The juveniles would be taken into custody until parents are called. But parents stand to pay a high price; upon taking custody of their child, they would be issued a court summons. That almost guarantees a fine or worse. And if parents don’t show up in a timely fashion in the eyes of officers, they would be charged with neglect or child abandonment and have that child handed over to CPS!

At the root of this is teens scaring or intimidating or disturbing citizens in some way or another. That goes on in every city in the entire country. But what inevitably follows is racial profiling, stop and frisk, questionable detentions because of judgement calls by officers who, by nature, would be overwhelmed from the minute they started up. Judging who has the radio that’s up too loud, trying to round up dancers in the street, or breaking up a basketball game is risky. It’s unconstitutional to take certain actions anyway, but who decides what inappropriate clothing is? They would call it indecent exposure and come on, now. That’s too thin. Republicans in Washington have banned their own (politicians) women from going sleeveless while in session. Are arms indecent now? This really makes no sense. Republicans typically behave worse when it comes to sex, but scandalous or just not caught yet means everything. If Donald Trump paid Stormy Daniels hush money it was because he was pandering to the religious conservatives who have quickies and never remove their clothes during sex, so they can get back to their daily scripture reading as quickly as possible. And it doesn’t matter if they download porn in their pastor’s study, or if they are pastors: they fear “religious oppression” and will bankroll conservatives every time. Main reason: they make a lot of money off parishioners and that is something more important than faith any day, and every day in-between. What is indecent exposure? Who decides? Conservatives.

Don’t get me wrong here: if a person is stark naked in public, they’re breaking the law. If some guy pulls out his weenie to piss, and someone sees it, that’s indecent exposure. A park flasher should be taken away for a full mental evaluation, no doubt about it. But look, conservatives take basic truths and twist them into pretzels. So a guy wearing boxers and low riding jeans may not show good taste, but if you see no skin, that is not indecent exposure.

I’ve heard men at shopping centers yell at young women to go home and “put some clothes on”. But there was never a law prohibiting cleavage and legs. Even though some don’t approve, mostly because insecure men don’t want to see what they can’t have. It scares them. Then they go home and beat off. Fucking headcases.

How does it look to the world that sees this country as a nation of barbarians in the first place, then reads progressively worse news stories in articles in their own country? European free countries have always, in general, thought us a bit eccentric in our mores and sexual hang-ups. But imagine police in America patrolling in cruisers, looking for kids wearing miniskirts and low-riders. Fascism, or nazism?

The issue is not, ultimately, law and order, it is actually going to turn into one of backlash and civil unrest. And while some will believe that eight field officers and three supervisors might not be able to cause much trouble, we have all seen what one rogue cop can do.

As of this writing, the city officials denied that this unit was even in existence and that it was a concept that was proposed but never approved. Yet names of officers clearly appeared in at least one source, either a written draft or in a MPD video. It is a likely testament to the power of outraged civilians howling in protest that the unit’s existence is being denied.

That same outcry occurred just days ago in Missouri after an 84-year-old white man shot a black youth through his closed front door. Arriving at the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers around 22:00, the man answered the door, said “Don’t come around here again” and shut the door. Then he fired two .32 caliber rounds through his front door, nearly killing the black boy who only wanted to get his kid brothers home safely. A piece of shit Saturday Night Special.

Originally the police arrested the elderly maniac, but let him go because (of a law no one really understands) said he could shoot his gun at anyone who caused him to fear for his personal safety. It’s either legally or euphemistically called the “Stand Your Ground” law.

But there was immediate and serious backlash from the Kansas City residents. They gathered, chanted “fight back!” and their numbers grew. The shooter’s house was vandalized. The police knew that it wasn’t going well and thought the matter through a bit more. Nobody shoots through their front door. And firing twice, scoring two hits, including a head shot? That’s not luck. That’s someone whose senses are remarkable for anyone at that age. A maniac with intent and ability. And a whole lot of racial hate.

He was arrested on charges of attempted murder and some bullshit misdemeanor which he’ll plead down to and serve 6 months house arrest.

But whatever comes of it, he will have to relocate. His life will only be worth one round of 9mm ammunition. Nothing more. Because things are building up to a point which I don’t want to imagine, but have anyway, hundreds of times.

There is no way to avoid it. Neither party is willing to bend. Gun control is not possible. Republicans argue that in Nazi Germany Hitler restricted all firearms in the civilian population. This is utterly ridiculous and it was the Weimar Republic that did that, but the Third Reich actually allowed civilians belonging to the Nazi Party to own guns. Political dissidents meanwhile, whether German or not, were shipped out to prison camps. Any not being so condemned were not just restricted from owning guns, but had other tortures held aside for them. Being monitored by the Gestapo arm of the Schustaffel would have been shameful and full of constant fear. Neighbors would spy, even lie about one’s activities to score points for themselves and some kind of favor.

Back then, what is often overlooked is that it wasn’t just Jews who got sent to die, by machine gunners, by Xyclon B, medical experiments, being cooked in ovens, or starvation and exposure, but also gay men and women, bisexuals, the mentally ill, Christians and anyone who, by Himmler and Heydrich’s standards were not fit to breathe German air.

Many falsehoods exist concerning the German Nazis, but with all that they did, using them as an example to use against gun control is lame, a lie that today often gets used by Republicans here in the US. The argument is illogical at least, comical at most. It assumes that an armed citizenry prevents tyranny. No source backs this up; the evidence is to the contrary if anything. Using the Revolutionary War doesn’t work either. The further reasoning is that if they use this argument, democrats will see reason because they fear tyranny most of all. While, plainly visible but never admitted aloud, republicans are the party choking out personal civil rights. The proof is in the stacked Supreme Court laying the groundwork for abortion to be banned in every state. It reversed the Roe versus Wade decision and handed the right of individual states to allow or ban abortions.

In extreme cases it is illegal to get an abortion even if pregnancy is caused by rape and incestuous rape. A minor cannot abort her father’s baby. That’s how it used to be, and it wasn’t that long ago. For a developed country yes, World, we are barbarians. In Nazi Germany, abortion was legal but had to be approved. That’s not to extoll the greatness of a mass-genocidal regime; merely to illustrate how we are headed for something far more oppressive. And that should terrify everyone, but they don’t see it coming. They don’t even think it’s possible.

Other restrictions are adding up by the day. The state of Florida will never be the same after DeSantis leaves the Governor’s mansion.

He’s signed the “Don’t say gay” bill and expanded it to all grades. It prohibits all sex education teaching and is aimed mostly at gay and bisexual kids. Because you can, of course, teach kids not to be gay. If they can’t be taught what it is, or accidentally read about it in some library book, they’ll never think about being gay, right? Right?

And if you ban “harmful drag queen story time”, then….

I can’t finish that sentence. We’re going the same way all oppression forced on societies throughout history has gone – into absurdity.

He’s also banned any history classes on African Americans and their culture, and the term “climate change” has been banned. Also, books vanished from all school libraries because his restrictions on literature are impossible for anyone to understand, much less use as a guide for picking which books are acceptable (hint: the answer is none anyway).

It is the republican party that draws us closer to any form of Nazi or fascist, totalitarian government. They refuse to save children from guns but will not help a rape victim care for her baby with government assistance. They want social security and all other benefits immediately banned. People dying by the numbers will not be enough for them. People imprisoned for not having jobs because they’re disabled is not far-fetched. Not anymore. Global warming will not be a problem for them either. They simply claim it is not real. Restricting the causes is not as important to republicans as providing tax breaks to the worst conglomerates who cause it.

For years I’ve repeatedly claimed that we were at a crossroads and that serious problems had to be addressed.

Nothing has changed unless you consider things getting worse a change.

There are innovative ways people are working on to help, but the problem with global warming is that when consumers are offered choices, they often resist change. And they’ve been misled because most electric power is generated by burning fossil fuel, so charging an electric car just adds to, rather than alleviates, the emissions of carbon.

Confused people also can’t decide if wind farms are good or bad because of men like Donald Trump who claimed if the wind stopped your favorite TV show wouldn’t continue, that birds by the millions are killed by them and that dangerous fields surrounded them. But there’s always one way to figure the truth out for yourself: Donald Trump never tells the truth. About anything.

Nor do his acolytes, who for reasons of having power or not wishing to be ostracized, will back him up ceaselessly.

The oppression and the deceit builds up. It never makes any sense, but it’s happening. It will get worse. Like a snowball in a cartoon, rolling downhill, movements like this get bigger, build speed, and become incredibly powerful.

To conclude, oppression and tyranny are coming to power and will rule this land with no fucking mercy. In this moment, we still have choices. It’s critical that we make the right ones, because tomorrow, our freedom of choice could be taken away. Our allies will not help. They will turn away. Men in power and weak, crazy women who act as their false prophets (looking at you, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert) will relentlessly hound people like generic liberals, progressives, and single out the LGBTQ+population as well as Blacks and Hispanics and persecute them relentlessly. They clearly hate Pride Day, MLK’s birthday and Black Lives Matter, and have already silenced the Me Too Movement. Partly, of course, through media silence, partly with cash and partly with threats and intimidation. Ron DeSantis has targeted Disney, his own state’s biggest attraction and generator of business and tourism. Because Disney stood up for LGBTQ+ rights. That is mind-boggling, going to war with that which keeps your state taking in money. Madness!

I have been fortunate in my life to have known many gay and lesbian friends. They enriched my soul and taught me great lessons. Of the friends I’ve left behind, as we all do throughout our lives, they were the most understanding and loyal, helpful and protective. Their souls were radiant, and I miss them all. Had I grown up in a bubble as my father wished me to, I would never have known and gotten close to great friends. I would not have learned anything. To have hatred and bigotry limit your potential friends is spiritual suicide. And most of my friends, the ones I can count on?

Well, they’re black. I’ve shared rent in a two-bedroom condo with my closest friend for almost 9 years now. We don’t fight, don’t argue. We don’t share food or a budget, but live separatey, yet we are friends, respectful and honest. We can go to each other for help, and either one of us would give his life to save the other. We mourn together when tragedy strikes. When my son was alive, having been raised by a racist grandmother, mother and step-father, Larry was able to show him that respect and decency still counted. My son loved him, and even asked how he was doing when he called me. When he visited, they brought out the best in each other with playful, nonsensical banter. After Mike Jr. passed away, I believe it hurt Larry very much, but he fights hard against some of his emotions. He’s suffered loss too, a lot of it, too much, really. He realized Mikey would never visit us again and he didn’t know how to handle it. I told him softly, “Man, did that boy love you.” And he looked as if he understood. But he still never spoke about it.

All we have in this life is each other, you, me, and the Larrys and Michael Juniors of this world. In whatever time we have here, we’re supposed to make a difference. We have no right to make things worse or to hurt others. What my son and best friend shared opened Mike’s mind to reality and a world he had not seen before. And love. It’s the greatest thing any two people can share.

What a shame it is that so many miss out on that. What a horrible thing to aim hate at people you’ve been taught to mistrust. It makes whatever is looming in our path more inescapable. It seals a fate none will enjoy.

America will never become a Nazi power.

It will be far, far worse. Do not allow that.

Epitaph For The Future

It is already written. The Colorado River is dying. The level has dropped to the point where smallmouth bass, with a liking for warm surface water, have been found below the dam inside the lower part of the river.

How’s that a bad thing, when that particular game fish is avidly sought by all anglers? The answer surprised me: chubs are an endangered species found exclusively in the lower river, and the smallmouth bass love to eat them. Say goodbye to one more species of wildlife forever.

The reason is horrifying. The steep drop in water level in the reservoir puts the surface close to the turbine intakes, pipes called penstocks, and the bass get sucked in. All that survive the trip come up dazed on the lower side, but recover. Trapped, they now have a new habitat where their numbers increase rapidly in the shallower, warm water.

But another factor is why the reservoir is so low. Now we have to face global warming, years of drought and reckless water use. The demand for regional water was always too high for supply. Two things done by humans that are bringing catastrophic damage, which cannot be reversed and which, because of greed, not even slowed down. No one, from farmers to homeowners, wants to reduce their use of water, and if it weren’t so, we could have done something to avoid the horrible outcome. But it’s too late now. The epitaph for wildlife as well as humans has already been carved into a granite headstone. All we lack now are flowers for the funeral.

Except, flowers will not be available by then.

And to make everything even more scary, the largest source of fresh groundwater in the United States is being significantly exploited and yet, the consideration that it took thousands or millions of years to accumulate, we’re draining the fuck out of it. The process of refilling would take even longer than it took to become an aquifer in the first place, because carbon gasses trapped in the upper atmosphere can’t be reduced, and drought, irresponsible usage and global warming have already caused our inevitable end. Biologists and environmental experts can scream, yet nobody hears them. The media ignore them. The reason being, nobody wants to think about it. It’s too much to take.

The states which our largest aquifer lies beneath. (Wikipedia)

The media isn’t concerned with the future. It is very interested in the current, and the past is also big when it comes to a celebrity’s behavior. Once an accusation is raised, it’s all over the news, and that shit won’t be let go soon. They drag it out from here to the point when the next salacious story comes up. The news is not news. It’s voyeuristic garbage often listed as “news and entertainment”, two things that should never be mixed.

And we are dying.

Overturning Roe will cause the population to climb and therefore, food and water demand to increase, and we have already passed the mark where everything is unsustainable. It’s going to be a shit show, and at some point in time, we won’t be able to turn our heads away anymore. And you can take any post-apocalyptic movie you want: the real thing will be worse.

Mostly brought to you by politicians and mega corporations, which make monopolies of the past appear microscopic in comparison.

It’s all carved in stone, now.

Is It Too Late?

A segment on 60 Minutes last night got my attention. I watched as it was confirmed that one of my fears had already come to be.

France is suffering from global warming. Its Grape harvest is way down. Dramatically so: for 600 years the day for harvesting grapes was in late October. After that, it was the end of September. Now it’s mid-August.

The yield is scary. Grapes are dying from a fungus that’s adapted itself to warmer conditions. And rainfall is different. Soil once rich is turning hostile.

When I first predicted this back in the double aughts, I didn’t know I’d live to see it. Well, I have. They’re planting vines at higher altitudes, just as I said they would.

Meanwhile the UK is growing lots of grapes because it, too, has been affected. This is happening much faster than I expected it to.

It is a terrifying fact. In France, the grapes that do survive are making better quality wine. It’s good, very good. It may not even need as much aging.

But it will grow much more expensive to buy. Soon, the average person won’t be able to get a glass of it. Dinner at a five star restaurant will be washed down with beer or Coke.

My guess for this nightmare was for 2030 at first. But obviously I was wrong.

Climates once prime for farming beans, coffee and a variety of vegetables are no longer. As global warming accelerates, farms are failing, workers let go, and things are looking grim.

Don’t take my word for. Do the research, see it for yourself. As cars, trucks, boats and factories continue to burn coal and petroleum, we have been handed a death sentence.

I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.” –Revelation to St. John of Patmos

A Child Of The Night

*This post contains references to suicide. It’s a thing so final and dark that reading this could cause readers distress. If you or someone you know are thinking about suicide, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline. Click here for a phone number or online chat.

What is it, Catullus? Why do you not make haste to die?

A famous line, from a famous poet, it seems pathetically straightforward, but it is not. He was a contemporary of Julius Caesar, and was not bashful about including sexual imagery in his poetry. He also took humorous shots at Caesar. Coming from a family of some wealth and prominence, Gāius Valerius Catullus smeared the esteem of Caesar in the public mind. However, the two apparently reconciled. So, who is it then, the man in the curule chair, who tests Catullus so? Who is this ruler who sits in an official’s (curule) chair and makes Catullus question why he is slow to commit suicide?

***

I went out yesterday to get, I hoped, a loaf of bread, some cream for coffee and a 2 litre bottle of zero sugar cola. To my shock, and since the items were generic, I had enough money.

The sun had set. I don’t like being out or even awake during the day. The light hurts my eyes, stabs them like kabob skewers. Everything hurts, but cataracts cause the refraction of light to screw up my vision. I constantly see as if through a dirty window, only pain is involved.

I wish I could say that the walk did me some good. As if it lifted my spirits. Sometimes a walk does that. Not this time. It felt too cold, even with a denim jacket. The crisp air put me to sleep; I napped fitfully with nightmares, then was wide awake. Still dark. Still before midnight. Doomed to rise like a vampire to exist only in the hours when others sleep.

Oh, I know: you think I’m using hyperbole. But I’m not a poet, nor a journalist who needs to use lurid or silly words. Unless, of course, I feel I can use the help. But I’ve actually been accused of being a vampire, because, damn it, people notice weird things like seeing me in daylight only rarely or for short periods, but can easily look from their windows at any hour of the night and see me out front, indulging in a Marlboro. I’ve no doubt also been seen getting my mail at some weird hour.

I like the night. Several jobs I’ve had required me to work exclusively after dark. When driving a tractor-trailer rig, I grew to love those peaceful hours even more; less traffic, fewer speed traps, and definitely, at least on the Interstates, fewer last-call drunks.

Oh, and one more thing. I heard lots of stories about drivers being passed by women in cars. Women in various states of dress. What I mean is, skirts open, no pants, even nude. Now, it has to be pointed out that truckers are, generally, full of shit. When I worked around them as a teen, they told stories, mostly scary stuff, and I’d find out years later that the CB radio had been an internet precursor for urban legends and what we call “Creepypasta”. It was all bullshit.

And I, in the tall seat of a truck, had never seen any women doing what others claimed. Alas!

But one night, perhaps around 03:00, I was on Holabird Avenue, just leaving Lever Brothers with a load of soap and detergent, negotiating a sharp curve and preparing for the steep climb up a ramp to Interstate 95 toward the Fort McHenry Tunnel. A car came up on my left and passed me in the curve, and I looked down to make sure the driver was giving me space since I had to go wide. As I looked, he passed under a powerful street light by the GAF plant and what I saw proved to me just how unfair the universe was. First, because I saw it. Second, I was both jealous and in shock at the same time.

It was a guy. Too late for leaving a bar after Last Call; only after years passed did I face my experience and deduce that he was probably just a pervert.

This dude was hung, and I mean, he looked like a mutant, he was so big. I mean, it could have been a medical experiment gone horribly wrong. These explanations flashed, no pun intended, through my head. Folks, this guy’s penis looked like a hose from a fire engine! It was longer than his thighs, which were naked!

I called in sick the next night. I wasn’t triggered, because I didn’t know that word yet. I felt as if I’d been purposely targeted, like the timing of passing under the light. Felt as if I’d escaped a close call with a fucking tyrannosaurus.

That was my luck. When I delivered pizza, the guys would talk about women answering the door naked. I got the men whose bathrobes just happened to come open while they handed me cash.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not homophobic, and in the service, I’d been okay showering with other soldiers. You get used to it. You take your shower and get out. It’s nothing.

But on the road or at someone’s door, no, I didn’t like my luck. I wasn’t very sorry to leave trucking and pizza behind. Hell, I think it was five years before I even ate a pizza.

***

The night has its hazardous side. But it has a beauty few ever truly dare explore, and more is the pity; it is quite peaceful. The world takes the life out of you. The night is a tonic which restores you, whether you are asleep or not.

The worst things I went through growing up happened at night. Just writing that sentence sent me back there, and now I’m struggling to stop it. But I believe that’s when I developed a fear, not of the night, but of the bad things that came with it. My sleep pattern was changing and in school I had to fight exhaustion along with mental illness.

PTSD doesn’t wait to develop until after all ongoing traumatic experience has ceased. It occurs the instant the first trauma is inflicted and gets worse from there.

***

Catullus was asking himself why he had not killed himself when politicians abused their power. Things must have looked grim. Julius Caesar would go on to be assassinated, but raw and unbridled corruption would ever be present in Rome and the Empire it would soon create. Anyone who saw what it truly was could not have been anything but angry and frightened; enough so to contemplate suicide. And not that long after his time, another man who was unworthy of authority would sit in a curule chair and judge an innocent man, sending him to the cross. Not because of a reasonable doubt, but because he was threatened and had to do it. People cannot often see that they abuse or misuse their power. But most do. Baron Acton wrote:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

I may not believe that his observations are absolute, but to those whom this does not apply, there must be the awareness that they are exceptions to the rule.

Senator Mitch McConnell and others have given themselves over to evil, using power to continue the threat to American democracy long since begun, but exacerbated by Donald Trump. Ted Cruz feigned indignation at someone’s Nazi salute. He asked the Attorney General if that was legal. The answer: of course it is. We know Cruz (whose I.Q. is that of tepid water in degrees Fahrenheit), was attempting to catch Garland in some trap. It’s such a lame attempt that I wonder how the man ever survived this long. I picture him amputating a hand with a can opener and say to myself, That could happen.

People influenced by the initial Trump reaction to COVID-19 and his constant attacks on reporters and news outlets, along with the Trump Party movement and lies by anti-vaxxers, have been in school meetings screaming about mask-and-vaccine mandates for their children to be able to go to classes. Screaming. So much so that I’ve read reports on how children are being savagely affected. Yes. Traumatized. Most kids have no problem getting covid shots and wearing masks; it is the parents who are acting like meatballs. They do not ask what their children want. And more than one mother has called compulsory shot mandates “rape”. They obviously don’t know anything about either one. The ignorance is stupefying and utterly ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the political right, both Republican and Trumpian politicians, have set out to shut true democratic processes down.

The United States is currently in the process of a coup.

It’s so severe that in a public meeting, some dickhead asked if it was time to shoot the winners when Republicans lose elections. And the response he got wasn’t exactly a “no”. It is quite staggering to have lived from the Kennedy administration to now, look back and ask, What happened?

Global warming is so terrifying because it’s real. But again, right-wing politicians and the ruling boards of corporations sat on, ignored or bribed around reports from scientists and their recommended solutions that would slow it. That’s criminal conspiracy, and billions of U.S. dollars later, the true picture they knew would come true is coming true: from oil companies to toy manufacturers to farmers, the consumer base is shrinking. By now, even pay raises will not offset the cost of living because the funds to pay more is blatantly passed on to the public: inflation just gets worse. Wages for the majority of workers never have kept up with inflation; now it will get worse.

⁵And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. Rev. 6:5-6 kjv

In the Chesapeake Bay, on Tangier Island, there’s a bed and breakfast inn that would be charming and great for tourists. But the owner has himself in a bad place. The purchase, the taxes, the renovations, every cent, will be lost. The island is shrinking. Some islands have already vanished beneath the surface. The last holdout on one described what I can only imagine was heartbreaking. As temperatures rise, water is added to by melting ice from the land. Iceberg melt doesn’t do it because they already displace the amount of water that the melt water would occupy. Fresh water glacier melt can’t be replaced by snowfall fast enough and large slices fall into the sea or melt and drain through watersheds. That and the warmth trapped in the oceans (warm water has expanded molecules) causes water levels to rise. Can’t be stopped. The island I used to see when fishing in Tangier Sound will one day vanish.

There is no longer any way anyone can look at all that we face and not come up with, “We’re fucked“.

Every generation since the first century CE has played with predictions of when the “Apocalypse” will happen. Everyone including Christians honestly believed that every war, every natural disaster, every drought followed by famine, were all the beginning of the tribulation, or the end time predicted in apocalyptic writing, and there were more books written in that style than most think.

People have sold or even abandoned homes and literally gone to the hilltops to await the event called “the Rapture” even though nobody can pin down exactly what that is or whether Jesus mentioned it. He didn’t, but text attributed to him implies the famous “one will be taken, the other left.”

The Great War. The second World War. Before those, there were Genghis Kahn, the Empire of Rome, huge volcanic events, history changing earthquakes, the Bubonic Plague, the Crusades.

I don’t think I can say what’s true or not in the Bible, but after Pontius Pilate put Yeshua of Nazareth to death, the final and longest Jewish Diaspora began. And the persecution of Jews would eventually end up in the mass death that was The Holocaust. Jesus probably did predict that. It began when General Titus had legionaries kill Jews and tear down the temple, some thirty or so years after he predicted calamities that would follow his death.

Ever since 1946, Israeli agents have hunted the Nazis who escaped the trials at Nuremberg. Slowly, methodically and with vengeance burning inside each.

Each generation, no matter its race or religion, has faced the question, “Is this the end?”

Those who had to stay on hilltops until nightfall brought cold and chilling dampness, because Jesus never plucked them up and took them to Heaven, have suffered the ridicule of others when they asked for their old jobs. Or had to borrow food or money. And the next time their crank priest predicted the end of the world, he climbed the hill to find fewer people (perhaps they finally understood why Jesus said to his Apostles, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even I, only the Father.”).

But global warming has made me rethink the above verses from The Book of Revelation. Because, note that it isn’t what it seems. On a glance, it’s easy. Inflation, one measure of wheat for a day’s pay. That’s Inflation.

Except it’s more than that. It also indicates famine, and global warming will make (already is) crops fail as climate zones change. In other words, what will grow in a certain region (in this case grapes for wine) will no longer do so. Prime land for grapes will move north, and the north will yet still be hostile as far as rich soil.

We’re not sure which kind of oil is being referenced but it isn’t petroleum. Most likely olive oil, and olives will wither in their groves, burned on the branches and starved for water.

But there’s more to the horseman on the black horse, the only one among four which rides forth with instructions. This means that doing no harm to oil and wine indicates only the very rich and greedy will be able to have such things, and they’ll reap the whirlwind. Greed and power will show the poor in those days exactly the kind of men they have been following.

Greed and power, corrupting absolutely. The poor are spat upon by them. Men like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell never cared about anyone. McConnell and others, when told that if food assistance programs were stopped, a lot of people would die, replied to the effect, “Let them die.”

The people who support men like them are brainwashed by idiots on Fox News and the men themselves. They believe everything they’ve been told and now, to keep their ilk in power, are contemplating the assassination of anyone they don’t like who wins an election. Men sit in seats of power, the curule chairs, and the world has never seen anything like what’s coming. I wonder what Catullus would write now: would he give these monsters the literary pasting they deserve? Would he become hopeless and hang himself?

I think not.

I believe he would fight with written and spoken word and serve up great helpings of blunt truth laced with very colorful words.

I can’t see the light. It hurts. From dark things I’ve come, to live in darkness, to think from darkness, to see only darkness. I see bad things coming. Things I hope I’m wrong about. Things I pray that I am wrong about.

But it’s not always so bad. It’s peaceful here at night. So very peaceful.

I am doomed to be a child of the night. Born from darkness, only to end up fearing what the night would bring as I grew up. I may not drink blood, but I am absolutely undead, a vampire. A survivor who just can’t seem to fall down and die. I do not hasten to it.

Sometimes I wish I were a poet.

Lord knows, I should be. But then again, Catullus and Poe have already been here. How could I ever top them?

Thank you for being here when I need you. Be well.

Why You Should Avoid Facebook (Meta) And Instagram: It Seems That There’s An Illuminati After All

People want to read Cardi B and they want it uncensored.

So it’s said. And of course, in the United States, the land of the free, you can read or say anything, right?

Wrong. And I have never in my life seen a time when freedom of expression wasn’t on trial. In fact, it has never been worse, but between the war for independence from England and now, free speech was never a reality. I still cannot answer my high school history professor’s question, “What is the American Dream,” and I refuse to look for the answer on any website of encylopedic facts. Because whatever I find, I know it will be horseshit.

It’s not like I ever really believed it was real anyway. My answer got me a brutal rebuke and an insult as to my intelligence as well as an “F” grade.

My memory of whatever he defined it as has been lost to the passing of time. This is because I knew it was horseshit.

I saw the country as it was in 1978. I also read everything I could get my hands on because reading allowed me an escape from the abuse I still endured and the sexual abuse just ended, but which I have ever since been haunted by.

I’d read books both fictional and not. The nonfiction was usually about Nixon and his palace guard, and the implications of their action’s consequences were not lost on me.

Even Republicans told the president that he should resign. They were going to impeach him, and they said he would likely face a criminal case if that happened.

He took the advice and it broke his heart, but he resigned. It was a moment that has led us to Reagan, who sabotaged Carter’s campaign, which was hardly necessary considering that Americans would have sooner voted for Ronald McDonald than Carter.

What Reagan did was to negotiate release of the Iranian hostages through illegal action and then to ensure a guaranteed withholding of their release until after he was elected president. In this case on his inauguration. It was all very theatrical and he entered office with rhetoric unlike anything I’ve seen since. Of course he did. He was an actor. A former governor. A hybrid Californian who appealed even to democrats. Iran-Contra didn’t matter; against Nixon’s advice to keep his mouth shut, Reagan came through it all by sort of telling the truth, emerging as one of the most beloved presidents of our age.

All would have worked out, the country healed, but then came Bill Clinton. Republicans were by then more slimy and hateful than ever. They had evolved into political weapons who had no intention of doing right by their country or their oaths of office. They used Monica Lewinsky as a weapon. A slimy, sleazy trick. They had never done anything so overtly creepy.

I’m not saying that politics had ever not been fueled by the lust for power. To the contrary, elections and campaigns were never in the least civil. Some should have served to teach us little people that only with awareness and vigilance could a voter properly and responsibly vote, whether for an alderman or a president. That we could not swallow rhetoric but instead needed to study what was available at the time about every candidate. If there was ever a vetting process, however crude, it has long since passed to the hands of irresponsible and politically motivated members of the press, and now, to social media groups and sites who have given themselves the power to muffle, censor and use platforms for the twisting or the silencing of the truth.

Facebook has a power that is unquestionably absolute. Items posted and even comments are arbitrarily pulled, marked as disinformation or hate speech. Several times I was censored, while people posting total bullshit went untouched. And I noticed others getting worse treatment. PJ, one of my followers here who no longer visits this site, was repeatedly suspended (a thing known as Facebook Jail) despite always posting reliable sources in links. Although her passion has always been driven by the demand for truth, she was censored and suspended so many times that I knew without doubt that she was being watched and singled out by someone in power. The evidence was overwhelming. But never once did she post anything she had not fact-checked first; she often provided the link to fact checking websites.

But in Arizona, a red state, a liberal with her political savvy is always a threat and threats of her kind cannot be handled except with raw power and prejudice.

And that’s only one example.

Hate groups and hate speech, and most certainly disinformation, have been allowed to do anything. For a small time, Facebook stifled them. Mostly it’s been following the January 6th sacking of the US Capitol Building, the claims of election fraud and the assertion that Trump won, and finally COVID-19 and vaccine lies by conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers.

But when Facebook took action, it was reversed fairly quickly.

In using contractors, any business takes risks. Big ones. Their contract has rules and procedures. But as a private company, they can’t always be counted upon to honor their contract. This is certainly the case with Facebook. Their fact check contractor’s actions include shortcuts which yield unfair, arbitrary results.

John Stossel is a conservative muckraker with a long career behind him. And while I have rarely agreed with him, I do in this case.

He is suing Facebook and its contractors. He posted a video which Facebook removed for containing partial misinformation. In it, he never said that climate change didn’t play a part in California wildfires. He said that mismanagement of fire fighters and infrastructure had directly led to the worsening of disasters. And that climate change had exacerbated the problem. They claimed something was wrong with that. But when he contacted individuals in the group, none of them had even seen the video.

Stossel’s suit is for defamation. They’re calling his character and words as unreliable and untrue. I believe he should add other charges to his suit; he clearly has a case.

Climate change, a weasel term for global warming, is not a debatable topic. It isn’t coming, it is here. Stossel, as much as he can bring himself to, acknowledges this.

And if he did not, he would be a liar.

A recent article caught my eye. Before I go any further, I attest that the truth is not something most people are capable of hearing, much less having to live with; it is overwhelming and terrifying.

The article dealt with deforestation in the Amazon basin and rain forest. It was not to my liking because it gave dire predictions but couched them in words and phrases to soften the political backlash it was sure to attract.

However, I translated as I read. First, deforestation was linked to “savannization”. You know what that means, right? Trees gone, arid land incapable of supporting any but the hardiest of species, low amounts of rainfall. Already happening. More to come. And as that land is further exploited, there will come desertification, huge tracts of hectares of nothing but sand. And no one will be able to stop it.

The author was preoccupied with the effects on humans and economy. As temperatures rise, more heat injuries are being reported and the obvious projection is worse to follow. Heat injuries are a nice way of saying that people will fucking die.

I know that many who follow my blog already have to deal with being in heat and having to labor. Or knowing someone else who does. I know they have seen what prolonged exposure to heat does to a person. First comes dehydration. That makes a person sick enough; heat exhaustion renders one incapacitated, but once the body’s cooling system begins to break down further, sweating will cease. Skin is dry and hot. It’s time for treatment. Anything that stops this patient from getting fluids and being cooled will result in heatstroke, and death.

Farm workers in the Amazon will endure even worse. Heat and less rain means crop failure. That means jobs lost. And that is the death of many people.

The global economy is already suffering from warming. Droughts and crop failures as well as wildfires are becoming all too common.

What I see here is that certain prophecies are coming true, slowly and not as dramatic as, say, the Book of Revelation may depict, but coming terrifyingly close to being fulfilled. Is the judgement of God closer and more real than we thought?

Stossel claims not to see an increase in hurricanes and their intensity. I say otherwise and with rising air and seawater temperatures, it is only a question of when, not if: a supercane, once derided as a doomsday scenario element, will make a believer out of the naysayers. These storms can only be described as hurricanes on crack cocaine. They will break the rules we hold as absolute and kill and destroy everything in their paths. They will be unlike any we have seen.

For all our bitter and hateful words on social media, we cannot stop what’s true. Hate distracts and drains us from things we shouldn’t even be arguing about but should be doing something about.

Social media is a metabolic toxin. It drains us of resolve and strength. It’s been described as addiction to gambling and cigarettes but that’s not proper context. Someone on Meet the Press likened it to the evolution of automobiles: over decades we’ve had to invent speed limits, seatbelts, and so on. That’s closer to what I’d liken to social media. Free speech is one thing.

Hate speech and lies are another. And there have been casualties.

Considering that celebrity influencers get away with incredible things, and little people get suspended, I’d say that we’re late in inventing the seatbelt and enforcing its use for everyone, without prejudice.

Why should a celebrity be able to get others to believe that the earth is flat, but us little people get suspended for debunking the stupid idea as sheer fantasy, possibly delusional and certainly stupid?

Not all influencers are so irresponsible. Plenty tell the truth and refuse to be swayed. Social media makes the line between the two blur for people who don’t know any better. Lots of folks are impressionable and a bit naive. Their education and neglectful parenting has led them to a crossroads without a map. Cults thrive on such people, but just as serious are the ones led astray by rhetoric, lies and appeals by design which make them emotionally vulnerable.

They do it with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Children are one way that the illuminati (not intended to mean the fictional conspiracy theories about the rich who run the world but instead those rich and powerful who do rule social media) get an early start on new believers.

Instagram has a new element for preadolescent kids. I don’t know the particulars, but one has to question, why?

In the past I have warned people that posting photographs of their children, then posting scholastic achievements which include the name of their school, is reckless and stupid; it places a target of opportunity smack on their faces. Once done, they are in peril, and their own parents did it. They did not intend to. They’ve misjudged social media’s true nature. Facebook and Instagram become ways to mine information and provide stalkers with too much of it. Child traffickers are real, folks, and they are notoriously difficult to catch. Once a child goes missing, the odds are against them ever returning home. Oh, sure, there’s a market for every race and age group; that’s not in dispute. But children are the most sought after and bring high prices. I’m not speaking of worst case scenarios here. It’s a big problem and it just gets worse all the time.

My simplest advice is to remove yourself from social media. If you are unwilling, refrain from sharing any and all personal information. Use Anti-Malware apps, a VPN, and restrict your comments on whatever you read or watch. Facebook is leaking documents by people who were previously silent. That means staff. That means an enforced silence by what looks for all the world like a cult.

Finally, I know that the COVID-19 pandemic has made many people feel cut off and lonely. And loneliness is every dirty thing they say it is. We are social creatures. Sooner or later we have to step outside of our comfort zone. It’s hazardous. I sympathize, I truly do. But be safe. Beware the snakes lying in the grass. Protect yourself.

Because liars and predators do lurk in your path.

Keep using politics as a guide. The liars will always be a reminder that real evil does exist. People with no mercy. No morals. No restraint.

“Even Hercules Would Have Lost.”

Those are the words of Giorgos Kalomoiris. He was describing how fighting a wildfire in Greece this summer felt like fighting the Hydra, a famous snake monster with many heads. “Cut off one, two more appear in its place,” the saying goes.

On the Greek island of Evia, spelled most often as Euboea but pronounced the same, (The “b” is spoken as a “v”), the fires were vicious.

Wildfires wiped out most of the forest. It burned people out of homes and old, prosperous businesses. One firefighter helped save the homes of others even as his own home was destroyed by the conflagration.

As I played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, frustrated to near death and restarting several times as a masochistic love of it turned to bitter obsession, I did not know that these horrors were playing out in today’s Greek world. In the historical fiction game, the players will travel the ancient Aegean Sea in an attempt to find and save the character’s family, the fictional daughter and grandchildren of Leonidas I of Sparta.

At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE, the main character is a mercenary living on “Kephallonia” a mostly neutral, small island west of Ellis and Arkadia. To find who pulled apart their family when they were a child, the character, called a misthios, must find and kill every member of the cult known as Kosmos, which existed long before Leonidas and the famous Battle of The 300.

In creating the game, Ubisoft of Canada recreated the Ancient Greek world with breathtaking detail as far as known and mythological historic sites. Some are based on real features of the land, some on descriptions of the world’s oldest pure historians.

The player encounters real people from history including Socrates, Cleon, Pericles, Alkibiates, Hipocrates, Aspasia, Herodotus and more. Laboriously moving by sea, horseback and foot between the city-states, wild huntresses, Cultists, bandits and of course, Spartans and the Delian league (Athenians) along with pirates and other mercenaries, all represent constant threats, along with fierce animals.

I couldn’t help but get a curiosity about the Ancient Greek world, its history, its people. The creators of the game did some good work, but the game is the most tasking I’ve ever played. Some find it easy. I doubt their sincerity. If you should make it to Thera and figure out the puzzle to open the doors to Atlantis, you find out that, impossibly, Pythagoras is your real father and he’s still alive.

He tasks you with beating, in single combat, four creatures: The Minotaur, The Medusa, the Cyclops and the Sphinx. All can readily kill your character. But you have to kill them in epic boss fights and collect artifacts from inside their dead bodies, then take them back to Pythagoras. Then begins a truly sadistic journey through Elysium and Hades before you can finally enter the city of Atlantis.

Of course by 431, Hercules (Heracles), Perseus and Jason are long gone, but their stories live on. In Hades, there’s a boss fight with Hercules, and I wasn’t about to go in his cave after him. I used ghost arrows to shoot him through the rock walls. It takes a long time that way. But as his health diminishes he shouts an insult at his unseen foe: “You fight like an Argonaut!”

That’s hilarious since Hercules was an Argonaut.

The Ancient Greek world still fascinates us. The epic poem keeps the romantic and the terrifying alike alive to this day.

But I have to wonder. What would Socrates or Pericles think if they could see their people now? The lands scorched, trees burned to charcoal, animals gone or rapidly going extinct. Would the wars, the plague of 430 seem so terrible now, compared to what they would see, and then see what must follow?

To have a Greek firefighter compare a wildfire to the Hydra and pronounce that it would have overcome the great Hercules himself is not, to me, a use of hyperbole.

It’s just sad.

In the United States, the wildfires get names now, like hurricanes. This summer, 14 percent of the giant sequoia trees were incinerated. Homes in wildfire-prone areas are steadily rising in value, while HUD sells homes in flood-prone areas to the poor, knowing full well that the homes cannot survive.

In New York, flooding in the Holland Tunnel and subways, thought to be a freak during Superstorm Sandy, told us that it was not a once-in-a-lifetime event. And that it will keep happening.

A study predicts the obvious: people born after 2020 will encounter with terrifying regularity storms and droughts and wildfires that will make the awful summer of 2021 look peaceful in comparison. There will be more casualties, infrastructure destroyed, animal extinctions and food shortages than you or I can fathom. And we can already see a bad moon rising.

At the United Nations, Boris What’s-his-name, the UK Prime Minister who is really a bag of dead cats with a kitten in the middle eating its way out posing as a man, made a plea for world governments to take global warming seriously. Boris? That’s extraordinary, old boy!

As food prices rise astonishingly fast, due to global warming and greed, immigration policies which limit farm workers and more, we see also the pattern of extinction in wildlife, both plant and animal. What’s really bad is that rarely seen species are counted extinct, removing them from endangered status, which means everyone gives up on them. As animals no longer protected, they’ll certainly die. Yet history has shown us that we can help if we just don’t give up. The Perigrine falcon, bald eagle and some sea fowl have been brought back from endangered lists. We can do great things when we don’t give up.

And when dickhead politicians on the take crawl into their holes and let good people do what’s right.

China has made policy to stop construction of coal burning power plants. But we in the west do nothing.

Folks, we are all in great peril. There is no denying it, and those who try to should be seen as they are, greedy, delusional or ignorant.

I honestly care about how this world and everyone on it will continue after I’m gone. History is already chock-full of horror; yet we are writing an even more terrifying one, and we have no right to do so. Global warming is, according to health officials, the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. Future generations will live in a dystopia no movie can depict. Crime, disease, famine and war will accompany weather disasters like rising water levels, supercanes, thunderstorms from nightmares, fires and more, and I’m telling you that for all the ridicule she has endured, Greta Thunberg is right: it’s a world dying that we are killing, and whether or not you believe in an end of days prophecy, it’s already coming.

God damn it, stop this!

***

On Evia, people who lived in peace with nature are now in total despair. Can’t we sympathize, are we that hard-hearted, that selfish, that it means nothing to us?

In Rome, an unlikely scenario plays out. Wild boar (which root for trash but can get deadly, are ill-tempered and carry things best not mentioned) proliferate. They’re everywhere, prompting a common declaration: “We’ve been invaded.”

Wasn’t there something about the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse being given the power to kill with disease, war, and the wild beasts of the Earth?

Animals are responding to wildfires, deforestation and global warming.

Ask yourself if you really want to see that get worse. For that passage to come true.

Ask. Think. But be quick; we’re almost out of time.

The Fucking Problem With Construction Paper

Clive Stafford Smith wrote this op-ed in Aljazeera on 11 September. Read it, please, even if you don’t come back to finish this post. In case your searchable content is restricted I’d like to recommend a VPN. It hides your location from the sites you visit and if in Incognito mode, your ISP as well. You can view or download almost anything you want virtually undetected.

Now then. I’m glad a friend sent me this opinion piece. I was going to do it on the 11th, but was busy with other things and forgot about afterward.

Mr. Smith does one thing I have, since I have written blogs beginning in 2008, been unable to do: wrap all of the things we did wrong after September 11, 2001 up in a few paragraphs.

Sure, I expressed disgust at torture. Sure, I’ve also noted that of all the things Obama got right, he still kept up the charade that we were doing good things in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because we never should have been there at all.

I’ve written that we have engaged in violating human rights and stuck our middle finger at the world as if to say “We’re right no matter what so fuck you.”

And I’ve also been of the mind that the last war we righteously engaged in was World War Two, and that in so many words, every shot we’ve fired since was a big mistake, each and every one.

But what I have never been able to do is put all of these things together at one time. I got hung up specifically on torture: it is forbidden and it is a gross violation of everything that we the people thought our nation was dedicated to. Civility, keeping the law, not being the goddamn bad guys.

Although stories of torture did leak and cause outcry, we settled for “Okay, we won’t do it again,” when in fact we should have kept pressing for a full accounting of what had happened and what was going to be done to stop it. We sure are gullible.

I’ve written about why we should never have gone to war overseas against people instead of a country. How could any other country watch what we were doing and ever trust us again? How could any country not usually diplomatically engaged with us ever believe we were sincere with all the underhanded things we were doing in front of the whole world? We trashed any credibility we might have had in exchange for an open and arrogant display of unreasonable force and invasion. That’s not the United States I was taught about in school. Of course, our textbooks were printed in the 1950s, the height of the first chapter of the Cold War. Meaning the story of the first Thanksgiving, a complete lie in every sense, was fervently taught and we had to make “Pilgrim” hats with glue and black construction paper (and NO sharp scissors!)

The Age of the Big Crayon and Colored Construction Paper. Fuck, what a shit show.

I want to vomit. I may even manage it before I’m through here.

Some will not take kindly to my words. Had I said anything like this back then, and this is no joke, I would probably have been committed. I picture myself then, saying, “Fuck a pilgrim! You know the (native Americans) Indians hated us!” Man, how many girls would have drawn a breath in horror, how many guys would have cracked up because I said “fuck” out loud?

And how long would it have taken to expel me? Ah, with the stroke of the principal’s pen. Laugh if you must, but it’s true.

You know how many girls in my eighth grade class we lost to pregnancy? Parents wanted their kids taught straight arithmetic and fairy tales, no joke. Sex education? We had one visit in the assembly room during sixth grade. And that shit never happened again, I tell you. Never. In a place as big as Pasadena where there really wasn’t much else to do, kids fought, got hold of drugs, and fucked. In parks after dark, even in the woods, whatever. Parents were so shocked when their daughters got knocked up or their sons got caught smoking pot. Ignorant redneck motherfuckers, they were. Living a life of lies in a fairy tale world. We owe them so much.

Yes, Mr. Smith is correct. One hundred percent, baby. Everything we did following the attacks of September 11th was wrong. Just about as wrong as you can get. If they were teaching anything but bullshit in school, my generation would know this. To think that people my age still believe the first Thanksgiving was all warm and fuzzy white men hosting Indians for technicolor corn and turkey is enough to make me cringe.

But clearly, some do. Lots of people believe it. They also believe that planet Earth is flat. Rather like a sheet of construction paper. What a bunch of shitheads.

I think we have some sins to atone for. The question becomes whether there’s enough time. We’re still largely ignoring global warming. It and a nuclear holocaust inch closer with each tick of the clock.

Daddy-O, you got bigger problems than your 14-year-old getting preggers. Whether or not she actually keeps it is not my business. But let’s say she gives birth. What kind of world will that baby live in when it grows to be adult? My guess is an extremely hostile climate with a world war about to go nuclear.

And Mama, what of your son, whose drug use is limited to smoking grass, because your right-wing fringies and parents told you it was a gateway drug, and now you cry every night while praying for God to strike down his dealer?

You’re more blessed than you know and you’re pissing precious time with him away with your fucked-up rigidity. Grow the fuck up. God doesn’t do that shit and you’re the bigger sinner than anyone involved.

And political beliefs? We’re all guilty of wrong thinking. Everyone compared Biden to Trump. What about us? While Trump feigns wealth and wisdom in a show of grandiloquent shittiness, Biden never pretended to be anything but what he is. You want someone to blame, then fine: but add yourself to the fucking pile. What did you ever do to stop the wars or protest the Patriot Act or anything else but what you did, which was sit back and watch? Bullshit. We’re all dirty. Blood on our hands, each and every one.

And the clock is ticking.

I’ll play you out with the music and images of the end credits to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In the film, a probe of extraterrestrial origin begins causing serious damage to Earth’s atmosphere because its creator lost contact with humpback whales. Knowing they were gone, the civilization which sent the probe vaporizes sea water so the process of evolution can begin again. The idea is preposterous but the theme inescapably real; we’re killing every life on Earth.

https://youtu.be/SHbyILpmLXg